Turkish Sheykh Amīrī
With this piece, also recorded in the 1970s in Tehran, the listener is transported directly into an intimate and personal atmosphere. The tanbur precedes the singing and guides it in the melody. The cantor here is a visitor who was quite fond of Ostad. In a way, this supplication was “his” piece and Ostad appreciated the simplicity, humility, and sincerity with which he addressed God. Ostad affectionately affords the cantor the opportunity to join his voice to that of the tanbur, to express his love of the divine through this sensitive and profound declaration. The voice and the instrument respond to each other with strong emotional tension, each silence complementing this emotion and seemingly even strengthening it. This entanglement of sounds is punctuated by Ostad’s appeals to Ali.1 This poem was originally written in Kurdish Kurmānjī (close to Turkish) by Hazrat-e Qosh tchī Oghlī, a great spiritual figure of the Turkish Ahl-e Haqq tradition:2
I am no more than a sinner, but You, a reservoir of generosity,
Forgive us in the name of the Friend
Forgive us in the name of the pact with Benyāmīn,3 the guide
Our Lord, light of divine power
Pearl of the Ocean without a shore, You who take Your friends by the hand
Forgive us, in the name of Dāwūd, the intercessor
Do not immerse us in earthly attachments and worries
Do not throw us into the circle of the unjust
Forgive us, in the name of Pīr Mūsī, the scribe with the golden pen
And in the name of the devotion of Razbār
It is in You that I seek refuge, O peerless Friend
You, above whom there is no one
In the name of Khān Almās, the masterful (proficient), the greatest among the humble, forgive us!
It is in You that I seek refuge, Seigniorial Essence
I am intoxicated, inebriated
Forgive us in the name of Mostafā Dāwdān
Who bears Your wrath as half of his name4
Preserve us from the glittering tinsel of the world
Do not cast us among unjust men
Forgive us, in the name of Pīr Razbār, from the crucible where she bakes bread
From the King who commands all that there is
The true friend is one who has crossed the mountains and meanders of the way
And who has reached the destination
The fire that burns the deniers,
Forgive us in the name of this fire that burns the deniers
The master, the true sage, is one who knows
Whoever has renounced his head, his life
Forgive us, in the name of King Jamshīd,
Who drank from the chalice,5 with intoxicated eyes
Qosh tchī Oghlī says: O Unique Friend, Peerless, the Efficient
in everything
You who have 70,000 [spiritual] servants
Forgive us, for the sake of all of these servants!
1 In this context, Ali’s name is a way of invoking the divinity, similar to Haqq (Truth) and Hū (Him).2 The Ahl-e Haqq constitute a religious community numbering about one million among the Kurds of Iran and Iraq, as well as the Lors and Turks of Northwestern Iran.3 In the tradition of the Ahl-e Haqq of Kurdestān, Benyāmīn, and later in the poem, Dāwūd, Pīr Mūsī, Razbār, and Mostafā Dāwdān, are archangelic essences who, in the fourteenth century, were companions of Soltān Eshāq (or Sahāk), the founder of the Order who served as their spiritual pole and was himself deemed a theophany. Each of these essences had a specific spiritual function.4 Mostafā is the agent of divine wrath.5 The chalice in which the pure wine of mystic initiation is poured.
Turkish Sheykh Amīrī
Resilience